The Desert's Shadow
by hnybnny
Summary: For as long as the oldest adventurers could remember, the Great Desert had been there. Not long after the disappearance of Minecraftia's legendary heroes, the sands began to spread- but not into Minecraftia. It spread into the wilds, turning all into dust. But one oasis stood out- a mad scientist's castle, guarded endlessly by a glowing blue force-field. (Yogs/SoI)
1. Chapter 1

It came without warning.

For as long as the oldest adventurers could remember, the Great Desert was there. Immense and unmoving, it's expanse separated civilization from wilderness. Mortals from magic. Ancient ways of thinking from the newest technology. At least, that's the the adventurers said around campfires in the dead of night. They were the only ones capable enough to cross the sweltering to sands and to see just what lay on the other side. Few returned. Those that did, and in good health enough, spoke of established civilization and grand cities. They had names of grandeur, like Icaria, and Mistral. The adventurers spoke of Templars and great evils, and how utterly backwards the land beyond the sands was compared to their own. How... plain it was. No magic, no advanced technology. Any sort of machinery beyond the basic furnace or redstone was a wonder to them, a great mystery. These people had no generators, no machines to mine for them- no quarries, no computers. Their magic was rudimentary at best, waving a stick around a hoping for the best. They knew nothing of the laws of equivalent exchange, had no idea about transmutation or diving. The beasts in this land were much less terrifying, night or day, and the fauna was only of the most fundamental trees and flowers. It was quite sad, really.

Those adventurers also spoke of other things. Something else that made this land seem almost otherworldly.

They spoke of a wall.

A wall that kept the Great Desert out. The locals spoke of it, the desert, in fear. How odd, as they treated its sands as a hostile entity that had to be held back, lest it consume all in its path. The adventurers laughed, for there was no wall on their side, and the sands still held motionless as they always had. How queer these people were, with their 'skylords' and poor attempts at magic, people who should not hold the title 'wizard'. How curious was their fear, how curious was their superstitions and belief in a single benevolent god. How weird were their, well, their entire lives. The adventurers still only laughed as they headed back across the desert, ignoring the locals' halting cries of surprise.

Stories of this 'land beyond the desert' spread from community, from adventurer to adventurer, from trader to trader. It spread to a magic castle of black rock, to a mad scientist's keep, to a white marble factory where all chuckled at the far-fetched tale; save a solemn spaceman and his dwarven companion. It spread to isolated houses and dirt huts across the wilderness, and all who occupied the land thought how queer, how odd these people were!

And then the sands began to spread. Not all at once in a windswept storm, no- it spread like a sentient being. Slowly at first, meter by meter, mile by mile. But it picked up speed, devouring chunks of the land to replace with suffocating layers of sand. The desert was seemingly alive, digging tendrils of choking grit into everything, anything within reach. The other people, beyond the wall, had been warning those who visited. They knew. They knew the true nature of the beast, they knew the underlying danger. The trees, they shriveled and turned to sandstone by some force even the most accomplished of mages could not name. Animals were found dead with stone bones, bleeding out crimson sand onto the desert beneath. Soon, the adventurers who had laughed at the desert succumbed to it as well.

Most dwellers of the wilderness had no choice but to flee the homes they had built themselves, in a feeble attempt to outrun the desert that had betrayed them. hey did not understand that the sands could not, would not stop consuming until all was barren dust. However, others stayed. Those who managed to carve out a living there were stubborn, like the land around them. To those who stood still and faced the threat, the sand was anything but merciful. Their homes were buried, suffocating the inhabitants or crushing them beneath tons of desert- that is, if the mysterious plague the sands carried did not claim them first. Not to say all died. Some were lucky- or unlucky, if you considered they were trapped in a lifeless expanse that was slowly killing them as they breathed. These survivors, of those who did not take the hint and follow the ones who ran, were forced to become pathetic scavengers. Scratching a meager existence out of the land, day to bleak day; but they had their reasons for staying after all they had endured. Stubbornness. The fact that there was nothing else left, and running was futile. A few stayed because they had lost those close in the panic and sudden arrival of the sands. They scoured the wastes in search of their family, their friends- _anyone_.

Anyone at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Weak, weathered hands covered in worn rubber gloves clutched the windowsill as if it was a lifeline to this realm, unmoving. Tired eyes gazed outwards to the world beyond, obscured behind tinted glass, seemingly unblinking. The man stood in solemn silence, the isolated king of a desolate land that was once flush with life and vigor, but now was occupied only by skeletal husks of buildings, animal corpses, and sand. So much sand. The scene was almost peaceful, with the wind whistling softly across the desert, attempting to comfort the man and convince him, falsely, that he was not alone- but the mechanical, artificial _tinks_ and _whirrs_ throughout his home reminded him otherwise. Harsh blue light emanated from the shield around him and his castle at all hours of day and night, burning sleep from the man's eyes, and making it impossible for him to forget the threat that surrounded him on all sides.

Lalna LividCoffee, genius, mad scientist and companion to the legendary Heroes, felt nothing short of broken .

For months now, ever since the tide of the sands had turned, all hope had been lost. The spark could only flicker for so long, because smothered and starved, it eventually had to die like so many who lived across the land. So many lives snuffed out like a match, leaving this plane clueless as to the larger forces at play, clueless as to how they were mere pawns in this game between Hero and Villain, Good and Evil. Lalna thought it utterly despicable. He had always been curious about the so-called 'gods' of their world, had always questioned as a true scientist should. He had always had his doubts, but the sands cemented them. No god would allow this to happen- Notch, or whoever was the master of this cruel game, had truly abandoned them. The world had ended, and Lalna was one of the few unlucky enough to survive.

He remembered the day it happened all too well. The Jaffa Factory… it was finally finished. He and the others had just returned from yet another wild adventure, this one involving whales, back to their one true home. Nothing had seemed amiss; the chests were overflowing with Jaffas as a certain dwarf had forgotten to turn off the machines before their departure, but other than that, all as it was when they had left it. No one noticed the curiosities surrounding the perimeter: trees stripped of their leaves, haphazardly dug holes, and miniature pyramids of sandstone. It was the next day when sand was discovered clogging the pipes, and Sips received a right tongue-lashing from Xephos, for how could have he been so careless to incorrectly sort the chests? Even with the grey man's vehement denial, none thought it could have been anything else. The day after that, the basement level was found flooded with impossible amounts of sand- the quarries were all filled up as well. Xephos swore and seemed peeved, because someone must be playing a naughty trick on the group. The day went normally after that occurrence, and Lalna went home to his castle that night as he always did, activating the force field in case Rythian felt up for some midnight revenge-taking. One could not blame the scientist for being paranoid. During the early morning, Lalna was awoken by what sounded like high-pitched thunder- but even louder. It was a cacophony, blocking out any noise from his machines or even his own thoughts. Cautiously glancing out his bedroom window, what he saw utterly terrified him.

Sand, as far as the eye could see. Pulsating and moving with tendrils as if it was alive, as if it was a creature whose sole need was to spread. It had to be alive, the way it moved; the way it's grainy tentacles threw themselves at his forcefield, exploding upon failed impact but still trying, again and again, to pierce the castle's defenses. Lalna's view of anything farther than a few chunks was blocked by a whirling sandstorm that seemed to kick up in moments, simply spreading more sand across the land. His thoughts quickly ran to his friends in the factory, but he could not leave his castle without disabling the force field, and judging by the giant sand-monster knocking at his metaphorical door, that seemed like a very bad idea. So he simply stayed put and watched in horror as the sands continued their course of destruction. Within hours his old house was covered as the ground rose up and up and up- he soon became glad he built his castle on a hill- and the terrain became alien and unfamiliar to him. Sandstone arches appeared, clawing their way out of the desert before climbing back in again, and even the trees were turned to sandstone. They were perfect images of nature and life, now turned to unnatural, unliving rock.

It was a week before the tendrils calmed enough for Lalna to leave his castle, disappearing back into the sands they had came from as if being called back by an unseen master. The terrain had stopped rising after the first day, but still it was now level with the hill on which his keep stood, the only intact building in the newfound wasteland. Making sure to clad himself in his strongest armor, unsure of what the world would throw at him, the scientist ventured out of his castle, reactivating the force-field behind him. It was eerily quiet, the wind whistling across the desert, singing a morbid tune. The Jaffa Factory was not far from his home, and it took only moments for him to fly over- flying, as something about the desert sands screamed that it held disease and death for any who touched it.

A sense of pure, unbridled sadness filled Lalna as his eyes fell upon the factory. After no more than a week it was surprisingly decrepit; holes in the walls, the once shiny marble worn to dullness, and the lights on the front were shattered. It was dark, except for the occasional sparks coming from the broken wires and lighting. It was dark and utterly empty. Empty of all life, empty of any traces of what happened to its occupants. Sand filled up the entire first floor and was creeping up on the second. The house was buried, along with the chicken coop and the other small offhand buildings inside the fence. He knew, hoped that his friends could not be dead, for they could just respawn- but what about their beds? Were they currently stuck in an endless loop of suffocating, dying, respawning, and repeating? Fetching his tools, the scientist dug and dug, sweltering in the boiling heat caused by the sun's rays reflecting off of the desert.

It was a hard job; whenever he took a break from removing sand, more would pour in from the sides, erasing his hours of work. There seemed to be an endless amount of it, the damn sand. Eventually, however, the house was uncovered. It was empty. The beds were gone, the chests were empty of their color-coded tools, and the holes to the basement were sealed up with stone. They were gone, all of them. His friends. Their fate was unknown to Lalna, but he hoped that their absence meant that they had escaped and fled towards safety. Perhaps towards Owl Island, or maybe even to one of the old bases of theirs. He did not know. No hint was left as to where his friends had gone, and as much as the man wanted to immediately go out hunting in search of them, the desert seemed to be sapping his strength by the moment. Going out into the now unknown territory would mean certain death, and a slow one at that. Depressed and disheartened, the mad scientist resigned himself to staying locked away in his tower, safe behind a glowing wall of blue.

As the weeks went by, legend spread of the scientist's castle among the few stragglers and survivors, attempting to carve out a living in sandstone. Lalna hardly left his castle, having all the resources he could ever need. Every now and then he would make trips to the factory to retrieve what he could, but he never left his force field down for more than a few minutes. The sand was a plague, and wherever it wasn't it would quickly move to occupy. It was like the Taint, but so much more… familiar. It was curious, and Lalna wished to study it, but could not and would not risk bringing any of it into the sole safe space in the wasteland. Soon, survivors began to appear in the area around his castle. A few took up residence in the factory; he knew this because he later found their half-rotten corpses, ripped apart by those things that go bump in the night. Small shacks made of scavenged materials peppered the border, but none stayed occupied for more than a week. Either the sands claimed what was theirs in the form of brutal, unrelenting sandstorms that buried those alive; or they were taken away in the night by either man or beast, Lalna did not care to know which.

Trapped in his castle, the scientist had naught to do but tinker and prepare. Prepare for an eventual venture into the wastes, prepare if one day his force field was to fail, or prepare if he faced an assault by the terrifying the creatures the sand brought. He reached the height of technology, but really, wasn't he already there? Once one reached the top, there was nowhere left to go. Lalna much preferred science to magic, but even he had to admit that in this case, magic could be much more powerful. A set of full Gem Armor he created, packed away in an alchemical bag in case of an emergency. The man was an prepared as he could be, but yet he still procrastinated leaving his bubble of safety. Was there even any hope left, any use in him leaving? Any form of civilization left untouched by the sands? He was unsure, growing more doubtful by the day. The scientist's once vivacious spirit was now shattered, and he was a husk of who he used to be. The sands sucked all life from all it touched, and while it spared the scientist his body, it had fed eagerly on his soul.

Thus brought Lalna out of his thoughts and back to the present day. Sighing deeply, he turned away from the window and the slowly setting sun that was casting vibrant hues onto the sands, combining with the glowing blue of the force field and creating a rainbow spectrum upon the walls, a spark of beauty in the ugliness of the current life. When the sun finally disappeared, darkness overtook the land like a suffocating cloak, lit only by the glowing beacon of hope that was the mad scientist's castle.

He stepped onto a pressure plate, being instantly teleported onto one of the lower levels of his castle, one containing chests and chests of materials, enough to make him the richest man alive if he lived on the other side of the fabled wall, in civilization. He wandered aimlessly, digging through the chests with no clear purpose in mind, for he was simply lost in a whirlpool of his thoughts.

Outside, night had descended upon the world. Sand was not the only danger brought by the taint, no; it brought other things with it. It contained the most terrifying creatures lurking in the shadows, hidden in daylight, preying on anyone unlucky enough to be without shelter when the sun set. No one could describe them, for no one lived to tell the tale. Lalna ignored these beings, safe as he was inside his glowing shell, and went about his business. Far below the tower from which the scientist worked, a lone figure stood in the sand just out of reach of the force field's light, blending in almost entirely with the darkness.

The only thing giving the figure away to anyone who cared look was a pair of brightly glowing white eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Lalna sighed.

The glowing blue of the force field reflected softly off the glass lenses of his goggles as the scientist held a hand horizontally to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the harsh noon sunlight. He couldn't help but squint, even with the force field's azure haze dulling the bright rays that bounced off the golden sand. The combination gave the expanse of desert a slight green tint, stretching as far as the eye could see and farther even then; yet the sky remained as blue as it has always been. From the balcony of the tallest tower of his castle, he could see for miles… but the landscape was not changed from what it was the night before, or the night before that. It never changed in great significance. The sands never retreated, but nor did their wily sandstone tendrils ever return like they did on the first night. The empty husk of the Jaffa Factory was the only structure that breached the gently curving line of the horizon. He had once played with the idea of setting out to find the SipsCo building or Blackrock, but he knew that without any landmarks, the effort would be in vain, not even adding in how deep the sands had gone- if he remembered correctly, both buildings were only a story tall with the vast architecture of each delving beneath the ground. There was the added worry that if he strayed too far, he might not be able to find his way back, and would therefore be easy prey for those accursed creatures whose shadowed silhouettes he saw creep about in the night, always just out of reach of his castle's gentle light.

It had been more than five weeks since the last time Lalna had seen any signs of life out in the wastes. Enough time had passed for the most recent shacks and lean-tos of survivors to be ripped apart and buried by the commonplace sandstorms, being devoid of both their creators and any opportunity-seeking scavengers to ensure their upkeep. This worried Lalna- the length of time between spotting stragglers had been growing larger and larger, but never had it been more than a goddamn _month_.

 _Maybe now you're really alone_ , the voice in the back of Lalna's head said.

 _No, there must be others_ \- that's what the man usually thought back, pushing such intrusive ideas aside. But he ignored it this time- or at least, he did not deny it. He did not argue it. Perhaps, this time, it was right.

He might as well have been alone, anyways. The last time he had even _talked_ to someone was the evening before the sands came and that was, Gods, what? A year ago? Perhaps more? Lalna never talked to or even acknowledged the people- he assumed they were Players, much like him- that seemed to flock to his castle and its beacon-like forcefield like moths to a flame. Although he marked the days down dutifully, as it helped to keep him sane in his self-inflicted solitary, time had lost its meaning long ago. He had taken up talking to himself a while back as another coping mechanism, one that he hardly even noticed himself doing anymore. It was simply a reflex. The only voice in the desert expanse was his own.

But that was enough wallowing in self-pity for one day. The darkness of hopelessness threatened to consume the man if he strayed too close for too long, so he had to set about things- no matter how repetitive or unimportant- to keep himself occupied and away from that ever-inviting ledge. He decided to venture once more to the Jaffa Factory while it was still light outside- it had been a while, relatively speaking, since he had gone last- he doubted there was much left to scavenge that he had missed, considering how many times he'd gone and went over the place with a metaphorical fine-toothed comb. But it never hurt to go again, especially considering he really needed to get out and stretch his legs, and take his mind off of things too.

Lalna made quick work of buttoning his lab coat back up to the collar and grabbing both his tools and an alchemical bag to hold whatever he found lying around, though he still doubted he'd get more than an inventory full unless he started taking the bricks from the foundation itself. He played around with the idea of giving any corpses or remains he found in the factory a proper burial, but he really had no wish to get closer to the sands than he really needed to- besides, the sands would come and bury what wasn't already picked over and consumed by the local night creatures soon enough.

He retrieved the remote that controlled the steadfast blue shield and flicked a switch, a shudder involuntarily running up his spine, as always was the case when he turned off the only thing keeping him safe from the wasteland outside. He wasted no time in flying over the walled threshold to his castle and reactivating the forcefield as soon as he passed the perimeter, slipping the remote back safely into his coat pocket once he had done so.

However, as engrossed as Lalna was in keeping the downtime of the forcefield to a minimum, he failed to glance downwards at any time during this- and therefore failed to notice the cloaked humanoid shape that slipped across the line between sand and grassy dirt in the few seconds of unwilling opportunity granted by the man.


End file.
